What documents do I need for a business loan?

The short-duration file

For a merchant cash advance, revenue-based financing or a short working capital note:

• A one-to-three page application, including owner details and a Social Security number for the credit and identity check
• Three to six months of business bank statements, every page, every account revenue lands in
• Government-issued photo ID for each owner above the funder's ownership threshold
• A voided business cheque or a bank letter confirming the account
• Card processing statements, where a meaningful share of revenue is card-based

That is often the whole submission. It is also why this end of the market is priced the way it is: less information collected, more uncertainty priced in.

The middle

Larger amounts, small lines of credit and many equipment deals add a year-to-date profit and loss statement and balance sheet, the most recent business tax return, a debt schedule covering every obligation including advances, an A/R and A/P ageing report if you invoice, and your entity documents — articles, operating agreement or bylaws, and a certificate of good standing.

The bank and SBA file

Everything above, plus two to three years of complete business tax returns with all schedules, two to three years of personal returns for each significant owner, a personal financial statement per guarantor, interim financials that tie to the last filed return, a 4506-C authorising the lender to obtain IRS transcripts, collateral documentation, insurance certificates with the required endorsements, and on SBA deals a set of government forms including a disclosure of anyone you paid to help you obtain the loan.

The full breakdown by tier is in the document list, tier by tier, and the SBA specifics are in the documents an SBA 7(a) file needs.

How to send bank statements so they read well

This is the document every tier asks for and the one most often supplied badly.

If your statements show negative days, returned items or existing daily debits, put a short written explanation in the file yourself rather than waiting to be asked. An underwriter who finds an unexplained NSF reads it as risk; the same NSF with a one-line explanation and the invoice that caused it reads as a Tuesday.

The debt schedule, since it is usually the weakest document

Most self-prepared debt schedules are a list of names and monthly payments. A usable one has seven columns: lender, original amount, current balance, monthly payment, rate, maturity date, and collateral or security. Include everything — term loans, lines, equipment leases, vehicle finance, cards carrying a balance, advances, and any loan from an owner.

Leaving an advance off it is the single fastest way to lose a bank file, because the debits are visible on the statements you just sent and the omission reads as concealment rather than oversight.

The three items that actually set your timeline

Sort your list by who produces each item. The things only you can produce you control completely. The things the lender produces move at their queue's pace. The things a third party produces — IRS transcripts, an appraisal, an insurance endorsement, a landlord's signature, a payoff letter from an existing funder — move on nobody's schedule but their own, and those are what decide when you close. Start them the day you have a conditional approval.

What to have ready now

Six months of bank statements as PDFs downloaded from your bank, the last filed return, a current P&L and balance sheet, a debt schedule you have checked against your statements, entity documents and ID. That folder covers the first request at every tier.

Stipulations, and why they arrive late

At every tier above the short-duration file, an approval is usually conditional, and the conditions — stipulations — are issued after the credit decision rather than before. Common ones are a landlord's consent or estoppel, proof of insurance with the lender named, a payoff letter from an existing funder, an updated interim financial statement because the one you filed has gone stale, and a copy of a contract the file relies on.

None of those is unreasonable and all of them take time you did not plan for, because each depends on somebody outside your business. Ask for the likely stipulation list at the point of conditional approval rather than waiting for it, and start the two or three that involve a third party the same day.

What should not be in the first conversation

You do not need to hand a Social Security number, an online banking password or six months of statements to someone whose identity and role you have not established. Find Me Funders' inquiry form asks for none of them — no SSN, no bank credentials, no documents — because none of that is needed to work out which lenders are worth applying to. Documents come after you know who is receiving them and what they will do with them.